The Economic Survey 2026 highlights a 4.6% growth in agriculture.
But the growth was driven by livestock and fisheries rather than crops.
Despite a favourable monsoon, crop growth remained volatile.
The agriculture sector grew at 4.6 per cent in financial year (FY) 2025-26, according to the Economic Survey Report 2025-26. However, continuing the trend, this growth was driven majorly by livestock and fisheries, rather than crops, the data showed.
In the first quarter of FY26, the sector saw a growth of 3.6 per cent, higher than the 2.7 per cent growth recorded in the corresponding period in FY25, mostly supported by a favourable monsoon, but still remained below the long-term average of 4.5 per cent.
The decade from 2015-16 to 2024-25 emerged as the sector’s strongest since 1975, with average annual growth of 4.45 per cent.
This performance, however, was underpinned largely by the steady growth of livestock (7.1 per cent) and fisheries and aquaculture (8.8 per cent), rather than sustained improvements in crop output. In fact, the crop sector has remained volatile from year to year and has failed to show a sustained upward trajectory, growing only at 3.5 per cent in the last decade.
The government attributed this pattern to deeper structural issues within the crop sector, rather than weather shocks, constraining long-term growth potential.
By contrast, allied activities, particularly livestock and fisheries, have grown at relatively stable rates of around 5-6 per cent. As a result, allied activities have increasingly compensated for weaknesses in crop agriculture, reinforcing the sector’s dependence on livestock and fisheries to drive overall expansion.
However, the Survey also admitted that sustaining this livestock-led growth will increasingly become challenging, particularly due to persistent feed and fodder shortages. Feed and fodder account for over 70 per cent of milk production costs, and livestock growth has significantly outpaced fodder expansion. The area under fodder crops remained limited at about 9.13 million hectares, or just 4.61 per cent of the gross cropped area.
According to estimates by the ICAR-Indian Grassland and Fodder Research Institute, demand-supply gaps ranged from 11-32 per cent in green fodder, 23 per cent in dry fodder, and 28-40 per cent in concentrates. These shortages and quality constraints have increased input costs and continued to affect livestock nutrition, highlighting the need for targeted interventions to ensure feed and fodder security.
Meanwhile, during FY15 and FY24, the livestock sector recorded a strong expansion, with its GVA increasing by nearly 195 per cent, registering a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.77 per cent at current prices. The fisheries sector also performed well, with fish production increasing by more than 140 per cent (by 88.14 lakh tons) during 2014-2025, compared to the increase from 2004-14.
While the Survey said that agriculture will be central to achieving ‘Viksit Bharat’, the data showed that livestock and fisheries were increasingly emerging as important growth engines and key contributors to enhancing farm incomes.
Along with allied activities, the horticulture sector, which accounted for around 33 per cent of agricultural GVA (gross value added), has also emerged as a bright spot in the country's agricultural growth trajectory. In 2024-25, horticulture production reached 362.08 metric tonnes (MT), surpassing the estimated food grain production of 329.68 MT.
“This underscores a gradual diversification of agricultural output towards high-value crops,” it said.
Meanwhile, the rate of growth of agriculture and allied activities was estimated to reduce in FY26, as the sector will grow by 3.1 per cent this year.